The African Report on Child Wellbeing series is a pan-African project initiated to promote state accountability to children and mobilise legal, policy and administrative actions towards progressive realisation of the ideals and principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC). The Report regularly assesses the extent to which African governments are living up to their commitments to children and provide critical analyses of strengths and weaknesses of national efforts made to put in place child-sensitive laws and policies and effectively implement them.

The African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) launched the African Child Information Hub (InfoHub) in November 2006. The main objective of the InfoHub is to create a forum to facilitate the exchange of information, ideas and experiences on matters relating to children. The InfoHub features a database of child-focused organizations , Data and Statistics on indicators of the wellbeing of children in Africa, the African Child E-Newsletter, News , an events calendar, reports, documents and research publications on the state of children.

The International Policy Conference on the African Child (IPC) is a major biennial event aimed at promoting policy dialogue on the rights and wellbeing of children in Africa. Since 2004, there have been six IPCs bringing together political leaders, leading thinkers, policy makers, activists and experts from governments, civil society, academia and international non-governmental organisations from within and outside Africa. It has within a relatively short period of time become a high-powered event, and the premier forum on children’s issues in Africa.

The Larissa Award draws attention to, documents and rewards good practice models in advancing the cause of children in Africa and encourages their replication. The specific purpose of the Larissa Award is to give recognition and encouragement to exemplary initiatives that made Africa a better place for its children. The Award seeks to project a positive image of a continent that is often portrayed only as one of doom and gloom. The Award covers a broad range of areas such as health care, education, nutrition, disability, and care for orphans.

At the heart of this report is the concept of measurement of the child-friendliness of laws and policies. these days, in development theory and programme implementation, such measurement frequently involves the development of indicators as tools to guide compliance, progress or delivery.

This report is a product of the partnership between our two organisations, a partnership that aims to advocate for better access to quality eye health and treatment for Africa’s children. It is unacceptable that most blind children in Africa have lost their sight due to preventable causes.

Africa had an encouraging economic outlook in recent years and efforts are being made to contain the impacts of armed conflicts and HIV/AIDS. Yet, the continent has a long way to go in ensuring the wellbeing of its children.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as any person below the age of 18 years. Given that children and young people (under 18 years) constitute over half of the Ethiopian population and have distinct developmental needs and experiences of poverty, they necessitate a special polic

A human rights approach to development broadens the traditional economic definition of poverty based on income to encompass the powerlessness and deprivation of capabilities of people to assert their rights and claim their entitlements (UN 2002a).

In February 2008, the government of Nigeria announced plans to conduct a census of vulnerable and impoverished children living within the country. The nationwide survey is designed to shed light on the lives of children in poverty in a way that will allow

Since 1994, the South African government has made many promises to poor children, committing itself to reducing child poverty and protecting child rights. The South African Constitution identifies an extensive state commitment towards children: to provide for basic needs of nutrition, shelter, basic

Tanzania is among the poorest countries in the world, ranking 159th in the Human Development Index in 2005. It is characterised by especially high and persistent rural poverty,2 with the additional burden caused by the HIV epidemic worsening the level and spread of poverty.

There are no poor children, but a lot of poor people. And therefore there are many poor parents, and families, and the children of those families live in poverty. Poverty is usually presented and discussed as a problem of income.

This report presents the findings of a retrospective survey on violence against girls carried out in five selected countries from Western and Central Africa. The countries included; Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nigeria and Senegal.

The UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) has often been seen as a threat to the family and in particular to the role and authority of parents. The fear is that the CRC emphasizes and promotes autonomy of children